November 29,1864, was an unforgettable day for the Cheyenne and Arapaho. On the banks of Sand Creek, 8 miles north and 1 mile east stood a camp of about 100 Cheyenne and some 10 Arapaho lodges established by order of the US Army Commander at nearby Fort Lyon.
Meanwhile, Colonel John M. Chivington drew up on a nearby ridge. He studied the situation below him, deciding how best to deploy his 750 Colorado volunteers and four 12-pound howitzers.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho were there under the Army's protection (or so they thought). Their chief (Black Kettle) had been in negotiations with the military trying to work out a working peace.
The attack came at dawn between first light and sunrise. When Black Kettle ran from his tipi and saw troops approaching, he hoisted an American flag above his lodge and raised a white flag below it. Nevertheless, the soldiers cut off the Indian horse herd and began firing. Black Kettle called for the awakening camp to remain calm; possibly he thought that some of the warriors had recently been raiding, and that the show of force was meant only to frighten them and to take some prisoners. It soon became clear, however, that the attack was deadly serious. The soldiers set up cannon on high ground and began to fire into the tipis.
Chief White Antelope ran toward the troops with his hands raised shouting in English, "Stop!" "Stop!" When he saw the hopelessness of it he halted and stood with folded arms. He was shot down. Women and children screamed and cried. They ran from the camp to scatter in the sandy hills. The warriors began to offer resistance, covering a retreat up the stream bed, where the high creek banks offered some protection and firing pits could be quickly dug in the soft sand.
Black Kettle remained under his flags at first; then, with his wife, joined the movement upstream. She would be shot nine times during this day, yet would live. Black Kettle, contrary to the report of the white commander, would also survive.
The battle lasted into the afternoon, but it was more an Indian hunt than a military engagement. Officers either would not or could not maintain discipline over the troops. Robert Bent (a half Cheyenne who had been forced to guide the expedition) later described the things he witnessed.
"I saw five squaws under a bank. When troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons t let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all. Some thirty or forty squaws, collected in a hole for protection, sent a little girl about six years old wit a white flag on a stick. She was shot and killed. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child lying by her side. I saw the body of White Antelope with the privates cut off, and I heard a soldier say he was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them."
One observe, who claimed he had counted the dead, put the total at 123, of whom 98 were women and children. Black Kettle fled north with the remnants of his half-naked band, where he fell in with another more warlike encampment on the Smoky Hill River. There he found food, clothing, and shelter against the plains winter. He was deeply angry at the slaughter, yet still he did not advocate all-out war. He continued to believe that the destiny of his Cheyenne's would be accommodation with white people. But his influence in the council was weakened, as, once again, was that of other would-be peacemakers.
Congressional hearings were later held, but none of the participants were punished.